Two of the teachers joined us later at the lodge for a farewell party, mostly for Gemma and Cesar, but also for Deb and me. Deb, Gemma and Monica made a nice pesto with basil, spinach and pecans, and Gemma made Spanish potato, onion and egg omelettes ("tortillas"). The beer and Pisco flowed freely, and Maf, a teacher originally from Botswana, brought his guitar and entertained us by playing and singing. He got thoroughly drunker than anyone else, even diminutive Gemma, who keeps up with the men but is half their weight and size, and suffers for it the next day.
Maf claims to be 4th generation Botswana, descended from French and Portuguese (the Frenchman likely a criminal escaping the law in the late 1800's, he says, and his family name was changed - he doesn't know from what), and he still has family there. His Dad is tight with Ian Khama, he has a stepmom, and one of four remaining brothers (originally there were six of them) lives there doing "entrepreneurial things", he says. Another one lives here in Lima, and is a journalist. He claims to be Jewish, but I don't think he's terribly sure of that either, and he gets drunk like an Irish poet. He played and sang "Oh, Botswana, Oh, Mama Africa...", with good guitar playing and guitar-slapping rhythm work, even when he was thoroughly pissed.
On the morning after, I got up make sure all traces of our party were cleaned up before the breakfast guests came down, but Gemma and Cesar had already done a pretty good job before they went to bed. Ruth was only ten minutes late, so after sweeping and making coffee, my job was done except for schmoozing with the guests when they came down. Deb and I ate our own breakfast and, with Mike and Monica, we headed off with Moises in his private car to see Salineras and Moray.
In the Maras valley there are warm salt springs. We're high in the mountains, but there is limestone around Cusco. A long time ago this was an ocean bottom that got up-thrust with the rest of the Andes, and as it evaporated, it created a fantastic salt reservoir. The city of Cusco was once a lake that eventually, slowly drained away. At Salineras a spring from the hillside runs underground through the reservoir and picks up salt in very high concentration, and then emerges. There are 5700 individual pans where the water is evaporated to give salt. This has been going on for thousands of years, since long before the Incas, of course, and is posited as one of several reasons why the Incas chose first Ollantaytambo, the "House of the Dawn" of the Inca Empire, and then Cusco as the centre of their empire, which spread out in four distinct provinces from that point.
Moray is a fascinating agronomic laboratory, a place where the Incas grew and adapted different kinds of plants to different altitudes and conditions, creating hardier corn varieties, etc, in a controlled environment where they could select the sun's angle at various seasons by planting at any point of the 360 degree circular terraces, as well as the depth into the sheltered funnel of terraces. Scientists have measured a temperature differential of 10 degrees Farenheit between various points of the terraces. The improved seeds from plants here were a precious and valued gift from the Inca to the leaders of other subjugated indigenous peoples around the empire. Here's are our photos of Moray, Salineras and some surrounding mountain peaks.
One of the most readable and succinct books about the Incas, with great photos, is one sold outside the Temple here, by Fernando and Edgar Salazar.
Next diary entry: Farewell Ollantaytambo
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